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Well, I got killed today. I did a terrible job on execution, entry identification and on the trades I had right, I had trouble holding them because of the choppy nature.

I tried a variation on a theme today and it bombed disastrously. Tried to get cute basically. Back to what works.

Does seem to be a tough and weird day! I got virtually no clean signals the entire morning. That almost never happens with my method. I guess the good news is, at least the method keeps me out of market conditions it was not designed for.

Not to mention the time it takes to type it all in. Particularily if you are a one finget typer like me. My brother is a programmer, you cant even see his fingers move when he is tapping out the keys.

I type reasonably fast but I just find I dont have much to say anymore. I did a ton of self analysis over the last couple of years. I'm not saying more shouldn't be done, its just that the analysis I have done is still in the process of being worked on. At some point, I'll probably hire a trading coach. Someone like Dr Menaker or perhaps Denise Schull or someone like that to work on fine tuning stuff but for now, the major issues I think I am familiar with and quite frankly, I tire of repeating it over and over.

Like today, I broke some rules....no need to go into a three hour tour of why. I know why. I was impatient and greedy. Enough said.

I felt such a sense of disappointment in myself for behaving in this fashion I know that tomorrow I will not repeat. I have already forgiven myself, promised to do better and so a new and promising day opens up before me.

I'm enjoying myself finally as a trader, I like the challenge, the stalking of the trade, the sense of a job well done when I execute properly, the reward that comes from preparing a plan, working the plan and seeing the results....all good things. I am striving to produce more and more of those feelings each day. This week I've had a couple of set backs. I suppose that is to be expected from time to time. Nothing to get to excited about.

I took three stops in a row. One was a good trade, the other two looked good but in hindsight were not. I stopped trading right then and just marked charts for three hours. I had some winners and some losers as well as some break evens.

To be fair, I think on a one min chart, this was one of the more difficult days to trade in recent memory. However, that is not an excuse for poor trading. Good trading was perhaps no trading today.

No charts today, if you trade or follow crude, you know what it looked like. Suffice to say, the chart is messy and unproductive.

I struggled with trend lines today. Where to put them, I keep telling myself to put them where it makes sense without even drawing the lines themselves. However, I often want to trade before the trendline is in play. For instance, a pull back to a moving average. Today that was just death. I took some S/R breaks without waiting for a candle to close. This is pretty aggressive trading for me. However, its the only way I could get more than 10 ticks before it went the other way. Since I am a scalper that needs a trend to follow through, days like this are hard for me.

Perhaps I need to develop a way to trade days like this. This is not a typical CL day, however, its really easy to get blown out if you try to trend trade and there is no trend.

I think I will engage in some study of how to trade non trending days. I think I know how. Just take limit orders at S/R. But that scares me a bit since I have seen and continue to see these kinds of orders just get blown away. And then, how big is the stop. There is no swing to measure that with. Perhaps its a hard money stop.

Anyway, I am glad its Friday, I need the weekend to rest and recover the mojo.

I took three stops in a row. One was a good trade, the other two looked good but in hindsight were not. I stopped trading right then and just marked charts for three hours. I had some winners and some losers as well as some break evens.

To be fair, I think on a one min chart, this was one of the more difficult days to trade in recent memory. However, that is not an excuse for poor trading. Good trading was perhaps no trading today.

No charts today, if you trade or follow crude, you know what it looked like. Suffice to say, the chart is messy and unproductive.

I struggled with trend lines today. Where to put them, I keep telling myself to put them where it makes sense without even drawing the lines themselves. However, I often want to trade before the trendline is in play. For instance, a pull back to a moving average. Today that was just death. I took some S/R breaks without waiting for a candle to close. This is pretty aggressive trading for me. However, its the only way I could get more than 10 ticks before it went the other way. Since I am a scalper that needs a trend to follow through, days like this are hard for me.

Perhaps I need to develop a way to trade days like this. This is not a typical CL day, however, its really easy to get blown out if you try to trend trade and there is no trend.

I think I will engage in some study of how to trade non trending days. I think I know how. Just take limit orders at S/R. But that scares me a bit since I have seen and continue to see these kinds of orders just get blown away. And then, how big is the stop. There is no swing to measure that with. Perhaps its a hard money stop.

Anyway, I am glad its Friday, I need the weekend to rest and recover the mojo.

I agree with everything you mentioned...This week, in general, has been very rangy, and the 1 minute gets very tricky.I got roasted today...just not patient enough.I sensed a few weeks ago, the cl had changed.Its almost like its waiting for something to happen..The 8:30 news blew out the chart.I find, that it takes some time, for the trading to get back to normal.I also had 2 trendlines from yesterday, that were prominent(horizontal).Also, i added one more today.In the past, you have mentioned the 5 min, and today , the 5 min was nasty.However, the range, from 9am to 10 am, was between 96.60 , and 97.20s.This seemed to me to be the lines in the sand.When price got into the 97>20s, sellers came in.Also, trading in the middle of this pitiful 63 tick range, was not good.I have been looking for overshoots of reliable trendlines, to enter(usually on a dogi or hammer)And this is counter trend, but, its merely observing where price is likely to react,which is a pullback in itself.***************limit orders at s/r levels is what they did today from 9-10 am eastern(imo),So, overshoots are nice, but, i still wait for a candle on the 1 min, like a doji...I dont just limit in ...

I took three stops in a row. One was a good trade, the other two looked good but in hindsight were not. I stopped trading right then and just marked charts for three hours. I had some winners and some losers as well as some break evens.

I

Anyway, I am glad its Friday, I need the weekend to rest and recover the mojo.

1. Don't be hard on yourself. As mentioned, not all conditions are ripe for every method. Otherwise there would be a line straight up on the Equity charts. Haven't seen one yet....

2. When you get into these conditions, they could change that day and go back, or they could remain the same for weeks, months or even years. There is no guarantee that HFT or something else is slowly changing the game and now you have to migrate, which I doubt is happening, but to always be aware which you are.

3. I remember back in the day you were scaling your Stop/TP's off of ATR/ADR, etc.. That might be worth evaluating? So you would scale up in your TP/SL etc..

1. Don't be hard on yourself. As mentioned, not all conditions are ripe for every method. Otherwise there would be a line straight up on the Equity charts. Haven't seen one yet....

2. When you get into these conditions, they could change that day and go back, or they could remain the same for weeks, months or even years. There is no guarantee that HFT or something else is slowly changing the game and now you have to migrate, which I doubt is happening, but to always be aware which you are.

3. I remember back in the day you were scaling your Stop/TP's off of ATR/ADR, etc.. That might be worth evaluating? So you would scale up in your TP/SL etc..

Item three: I have reverted to scaling targets up and down based on the current range of the day when I sit down. About 10% of the range for a target. Its not perfect of course but today, I had a hard time getting ten. Trading close of bars makes for tough trading in a narrow range. Of course I could scale down to an 89 or 150 tick chart. I've never done that but I suppose it could be tried on narrow days, at least I could get in the "trend" such as it is a bit early.

As to the other items, I agree. I'm not beating myself up. Its been a hard week mostly due to my own behavior, I have learned from it.

Item three: I have reverted to scaling targets up and down based on the current range of the day when I sit down. About 10% of the range for a target. Its not perfect of course but today, I had a hard time getting ten. Trading close of bars makes for tough trading in a narrow range. Of course I could scale down to an 89 or 150 tick chart. I've never done that but I suppose it could be tried on narrow days, at least I could get in the "trend" such as it is a bit early.

As to the other items, I agree. I'm not beating myself up. Its been a hard week mostly due to my own behavior, I have learned from it.

Here's to a better week next week.

Perhaps, you should not get a stronger microscope, but just enjoy the forest through the trees.